The Vatican Information Service is a news service, founded in the Holy See Press Office, that provides information about the Magisterium and the pastoral activities of the Holy Father and the Roman Curia...[+]

Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Vatican City, 20 May 2015 (VIS) –
Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin has sent a message to the
participants in the conference “The New Climate Economy: how
economic growth and sustainability can go hand in hand”, held today
in the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome, in
collaboration with the Pontifical Council “Justice and Peace” the
World Resource Institute, the New Climate Economy and the embassy of
the Netherlands to the Holy See.

The conference takes place in the
context of two key steps in the preparatory process adopted by the
United Nations: the UN Summit to adopt the post-2015 development
agenda and the 21st conference on the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change to be held in Paris next December, to
adopt a new agreement to face the adverse effects of climate change.
“Both of them represent the serious ethical and moral
responsibility that each of us has towards the whole human family,
especially the poor and future generations”, observed the cardinal.

“When the future of the planet is at
stake, there are no political frontiers, barriers or walls behind
which we can hide to protect ourselves from the effects of
environmental and social degradation. There is no room for the
globalisation of indifference, the economy of exclusion or the
throwaway culture so often denounced by Pope Francis. Of course, the
path is not easy, since this ethical and moral responsibility calls
into question the resetting of the development model, requiring a
major political and economic commitment. However, as I said to the UN
Climate Summit on 23 September 2014, 'the technological and
operational bases needed to facilitate this mutual responsibility are
already available or within our reach. We have the capacity to start
and strengthen a true and beneficial process which will irrigate, as
it were, through adaptation and mitigation activities, the field of
economic and technological innovation where it is possible to
cultivate two interconnected objectives: combating poverty and easing
the effects of climate change'”.

Cardinal Parolin concluded by conveying
Pope Francis' best wishes to the participants, and his hope that “the
discussions and reflections of this Conference may contribute to
further and deepen reflection on the meaning of the economy and its
goals, as well as to finding ways to guarantee access to a truly
integral human development for all, especially the poor and the
future generations”.